Journeymen-Printers, Heresy, and the Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Clive Griffin

Journeymen-Printers, Heresy, and the Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Clive Griffin

Description

Although the history of the book is a booming area of research, the journeymen who printed books in the sixteenth century have remained shadowy figures because they were not thought to have left any significant traces in the archives. Clive Griffin, however, uses Inquisitional documents from Spain and Portugal to reveal a clandestine network of Protestant-minded immigrant journeymen who were arrested by the Holy Office in Spain and Portugal in the 1560s and 1570s at a time of international crisis. A startlingly clear portrait of these humble men (and occasionally women) emerges allowing the reconstruction of what Namier deemed one of history's greatest challenges: 'the biographies of ordinary men'. We learn of their geographical and social origins, educational and
professional training, travels, careers, standard of living, violent behaviour, and even their attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions.

In the course of this study, many other subjects are addressed, among them: popular culture and religion; the history of skilled labour, the history of the book, and of reading and writing; the Inquisition; foreign and itinerant workers and the xenophobia they encountered; and the 'double lives' of lower-class Protestants living within a uniquely vigilant Catholic society.

Journeymen-Printers, Heresy, and the Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Clive Griffin

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Denunciation, Flight and Arrest3. Proofing the Printers4. Foreign Printing-workers in Spain5. Three Young Men6. Two Settled Printers7. The Presses8. Customs and Attitudes9. Beliefs10. The EndBibliographyIndex

Journeymen-Printers, Heresy, and the Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Clive Griffin

Author Information

Clive Griffin is Fellow and Tutor in Spanish, Trinity College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Latin American Literature, Oxford University. In 2001 he was elected Honorary Fellow of the Hispanic Society of America.